Metagame np: Stage 7 - Problem

[Punchshroom]

Oh god punch, yes you can set up on a knock off -> you take a chunk... OR you setup on the other 3/4 moves and take less damage... if they're going to pursuit trap a pokemon, they're complete setup fodder? or if it's already knocked off your item on your sneasel check or if it has to click coverage, then it's not going to be taking the 60-70%... Also, if they need sneasel for another threat on your team and they can't risk it, then they're sacking sneasel to do that potential 60-70% to your barb, by which it could just KO. Overall, you're judging this purely on the fact that you can stay in and click a move while they smash, when they could predict that and just ko? either way your whole argument is prediction based.
worst case scenario is life orb, by which the sneasel user has to make a prediction to get off damage.
252 Atk Life Orb Sneasel Knock Off (97.5 BP) vs. 4 HP / 0 Def Barbaracle: 148-175 (51.7 - 61.1%) -- guaranteed 2HKO

You act as if Sneasel is handicapped if it is forced to stick to Knock Off the whole game. There is almost no drawback, or indeed prediction, involved. Sneasel can, and in most games I've seen / played, will use nothing but Knock Off for the entirety of the match and not be worse for wear. It doesn't have to Pursuit trap things, or go out of its way to Icicle Crash stuff; as long as it has no reason to not stick to Knock Off, which applies against most teams, by George you can expect it will stick to it. Heck, if the Sneasel user does have a way to stop the Barbaracle threat, like a Poliwrath / Gurdurr / TWave Granbull or something, it probably won't even care about Barbaracle's presence and use its other attacks without fear, knowing that Barbara would only be around once to halt it.

 

[Marikeinen]

You act as if Sneasel is handicapped if it is forced to stick to Knock Off the whole game. There is almost no drawback, or indeed prediction, involved. Sneasel can, and in most games I've seen / played, will use nothing but Knock Off for the entirety of the match and not be worse for wear. It doesn't have to Pursuit trap things, or go out of its way to Icicle Crash stuff; as long as it has no reason to not stick to Knock Off, which applies against most teams, by George you can expect it will stick to it. Heck, if the Sneasel user does have a way to stop the Barbaracle threat, like a Poliwrath / Gurdurr / TWave Granbull or something, it probably won't even care about Barbaracle's presence and use its other attacks without fear, knowing that Barbara would only be around once to halt it.

In my last post I briefly talked about Sneasel and why I was abstaining on it back then. Originally I talked to Teddeh about sneasel and he brainwashed convinced me that Sneasel wasn't broken because of all it's defensive switch ins.
Well, my mind has changed. As Punchsroom here pointed out, Sneasel only really has to knock off: there's no drawback in doing that. Sure, it can pursuit but that can backfire horribly; why not just go for the safe and ALWAYS beneficial Knock off? Even if you bring in probably the best switch in for it, Mawile, it will lose its' lefties and gets worn down that much easier from that point on.
With just a little bit of teambuilding (e. g. not running the meme 5 mon core) one can counter the mons that would otherwise benefit from Sneasel being locked into knock off, which is not many as it is. This allows Sneasel spam knock off freely for the duration of the game.
Sneasel is one of those mons that if you're not using it in your team, you're immediately at a disadvantage; it even fits on stall for the purpose of removing Xatu's and other problematic mons, as Can-Eh-Dian mentioned in his post.
The meta is not going to get better if Sneasel OR Gallade leaves; they're broken in their own rights, and would be even if they existed in separate NU tiers. It IS true that gallade's arrival warped the meta around it and gives Sneasel a chance to destroy everything since it isn't accounted for as much. That doesn't mean it wouldn't be broken without gallade, now that the CB set has been properly "found".

Oh and BAN gallade please, or i will be very sad :(.

 

[Mysil]

I will admit I havent played alot lately, so I may not have enough experience to comment on this, nor do I have the reqs to vote. But since this tier is unbearable to play rn I feel like I should give my two cents on the matter.

I started laddering a couple days ago with an old team from back before magneton/fletchinder dropped because I didnt bother making new teams. I just wanted to test the waters. So I started laddering, and got smashed by the sneasel/gallade/mawile teams, as you would expect. So I went to the teambuilder to start building, only, it was impossible building anything without the "if you cant beat them, join them" mentality. This is really annoying for me because NU has always been my favourite tier because you have so many viable pokemon to choose from, and usually you can use obscure pokemon to success, if you know how to build.

Because im stubborn, I went ahead and made 3 teams that im planning to use after gallade and sneasel are banned (hopefully). I think they are pretty solid. Obviously I cant know that since I havent been able to test them, but I spent quite some time making them and made sure they didnt have any huge flaws (or a dark weakness). Then I started playing to see how much I would get destroyed simply because I didnt specifically prepare for sneasel. And what do you know. Sneasel was just as impossible to beat as I expected. Although this may just be me being salty and posting in rage after losing on the ladder, I think Ive made my point about how shit this metagame is, and how difficult it is to build diverse teams. And imo this is because of sneasel, and partly gallade.

 

[marilli]

Yikes, forgot about a small point, so will make this short:

The main reason that tipped me over the edge of not banning Sneasel is the following: most arguments for its ban can be summed up to: "it's the fastest relevant offensive threat that doesn't have 5 million checks." As long as you're not something like Swellow or Fletch which gets hard walled by entire types (which can be done also by offensive mons, hence why they do not qualify), it's obvious that if you're the fast threat and it's out against most offensive Pokemon, it's gonna get a kill. That doesn't necessarily mean it's broken, but it's apparently what everyone believes makes a broken Pokemon. If Sneasel's gone, it's gonna be the next speed tier mons, Tauros / Archeops that have these qualities. Then the next up.

This is not a slippery slope argument. It looks similar but it's not. It's an inductive argument, for which the inductive step only fails if all proper offensive mons are very slow. There's always a list of Pokemon that have limited amount of switches. In fact, most reasonably successful offensive Pokemon in any tier have this quality, so it's gonna just be easier taking out the short list of Pokemon which get hard walled by whole types yet remain effective for a quaint reason (usually they can only act as a pure "win condition" where they only start putting in work after certain mon is whittled, but is extremely efficient otherwise). There's always going to be the fastest speed tier among these offensive Pokemon that have the tools to punish most switch-ins. And such fastest Pokemon will always have these quality that people's claiming that makes Sneasel broken. It's gonna outspeed a vast majority of the offensive threat and it's going to 2hko most switches except defensive ones, or a very restrictive, short list of offensive threats that "limit teambuilding." And only way to beat them would be to either build slower teams aka. balance / stall / bulky offense that eats a hit and KO back, or carry priority moves or Scarfers for offense. For anyone thinking I'm just exaggerating, I'm just going to point out that Archeops really was this the case before neither Sneasel nor Tauros was popular, and everyone had to carry like one of the 2 aqua jetters (that couldn't switch in properly), 3 of the rock types, revenge, or tank a hit then kill. Kind of similar to how Sneasel requires like 2 of the fighting-type priority Pokemon, 2 of the GOOD fairy-types, or revenge, or tank a hit then kill.

So are all such Pokemon banworthy? Should we make it so that all Pokemon without a proper switch-in is banned unless they're slower than Sawk or something? Would that really make the tier fun, and would that be necessary?

Also, before anyone points out the philosophy of "If mon Y is broke after banning X, we'll ban it too, this point is utterly invalid," I am aware of that protocol. Notice how I'm not claiming that Tauros will be broken after the ban. I'm just pointing out the fact that whatever qualities people have been stating previously in the thread that makes Sneasel broken, will happen with at least something in the tier, and there will be always something that does what it does, which most people are claiming is the reason why Sneasel is broken. If not him, then something else. It is an eventuality unless we go to extreme measures banning half of the offensive metagame, and we'll be left with fastmons lose to bulkymons, bulkymons lose to wallbreakers, wallbreakers lose to fastmons, making the game trivial and easy. Some non-wincon attackers should be faster, some not. Certain types will be punished because of those who are faster and thus easier to fit. And there'll be certain defensive Pokemon many be relied on "limiting teambuilding", whether it be a meta centralized around Sneasel and grounded on Mawile and M-Audino, or whether it be a meta centralized Tauros and grounded on Regirock / Carracosta. I am simply pointing out that the idea that just because we ban Sneasel, no offensive Pokemon will be able to outspeed majority of the tier, can always spam a hard-hitting STAB, has good coverage, and thus heavily pressure offense, is laughable at best.

 

[Jim E. Russler]

Now that I have reqs I've gotten a lot more experience battling against Gallade, and I have indeed affirmed what I felt about Sneasel.

Gallade: Before I played on the suspect ladder, I had very limited experience battling against Gallade. I was interested to find out what set it apart from other wallbreakers with excellent coverage in NU like Magmortar or Sawk. I found that its utility options and versatility had a lot more impact than I expected.

In addition to its huge physical attack stat and great coverage (particularly notable for the dual STABs making things like Garbodor and Weezing hate switching into it), it carries an excellent support/utility movepool that I saw used to great effect while laddering. It can also run different items to significantly alter its effectiveness at different things. (Choice Band/Scarf, Life Orb, Assvest, Lefties, etc.)

It can use Memento to help RainPass teams, Trick choice items, Taunt/Thunder Wave unsuspecting Pokemon, Swords Dance to send its attack through the roof, and access a reliable priority move in Shadow Sneak. It has several more options (Destiny Bond, Encore, Toxic, Disable, Screens, Wish, etc.) that are more situational. However, Gallade's 4th moveslot is very flexible, because its STAB coverage combined with Knock Off is very effective. It can be used for your preferred coverage move (Stone Edge, Shadow Sneak, Leaf Blade, etc.) or one of many useful support options.

Gallade's level of offensive presence and wallbreaking potential combined with its high degree of versatility and unpredictability has me leaning moderately towards a ban vote. I will continue to pay attention to Gallade debates leading up to the vote because this is still partially up in the air for me.

Sneasel: No hesitation here. This Pokemon has a respectable number of viable switch-ins which have been discussed in previous posts (MegaDino, Mawile, Poliwrath, Gurdurr, Regirock, Carracosta, Granbull off the top of my head, there are honestly about a dozen consistent switch-ins to this and only 2 or 3 could be considered stretching it viability-wise). It's difficult to say that teambuilding is being suffocated when there are so many of these to choose from. Several of them also command offensive presence, so you aren't necessarily stuck with sending in a passive wall that will grind momentum to a halt.

marilli's post above details why the threat Sneasel poses to offensive teams doesn't necessarily warrant a ban a lot better than I could hope to, if for whatever reason you haven't read it I highly recommend doing so.

The banded set can be predicted/punished heavily if Sneasel movelocks into Pursuit, providing an easy opportunity for a set up sweeper. On the subject of Pursuit, I think Sneasel's ability to trap CM Psychics has a positive impact on the metagame if anything, like Skuntank in BW.

Add onto that the smaller details like Sneasel's hazard and priority weaknesses and general frailty, I'm going to have to vote no ban.

 

[North]

After getting reqs, here are my thoughts;

Gallade: Gallade has an extremly vast movepool, being able to run SD , Bulk Up, AV, and banded sets, Gallade really has no reliable counters. This allows Gallade to wallbreak extremly easily. Its defensive typing and natural bulk allow it to take some hits from invested attackers at full, and threaten to ko back. While the normal fighting checks in the tier include bulky poisons like Garbodor and Weezing. Gallade is able to hit these with its stab psychic attacks, (on a side note, gallade is able to dodge the recoil from Garbodor with psycho cut) leaving the only decent counter to it being Granbull, which lacks reliable recovery. Gallade is also easily supported by a team. Some of the fast psychics that can cause SD Gallade some trouble, like Uxie and some varients of Xatu, are very easily pursuit trapped by its most common partner, Sneasel. As of now I'm leaning towards Ban on this one.

Sneasel: The pokemon itself really is not broken. It has good checks in Mawile, Granbull, and Mega Audino, but the big problem with Sneasel is the role it plays to support its teammates via pursuit and weakening pokemon for others to start wrecking havoc. Sneasel is able to pursuit trap many psychics after a colbur is eaten or they are weakened, like Uxie and Xatu and Fast ghosts like Haunter and Mismagius. Both of these allow Gallade to proceed to beat the opponents team ebcause their dedicated check is now dead. Another thing to note is that most of Sneasel's main checks hate losing their item. Knock off is usually no risk since the only 2 checks to Sneasel that don't mind losing their lefties, are Mega Audino and to an extent Quagsire. That being said, I'm leaning towards Ban on Sneasel aswell.

 

[Blast]

I think marilli has brought some solid arguments against banning Sneasel, but I need to refute some of them (any paragraphs I didn't quote I more or less agree with)

You know the reason people are bringing up these Pokemon such as Barbaracle and Pawniard not because they can switch in, or be a shaky one-time check to Sneasel, it's because it absolutely pummels the "standard so good it's unbeatable" Sneasel / Gallade / Xatu / Lanturn / Mawile / Lilligant | filler | w/e core. It sets up on Sneasel locked into anything other than Knock and there's nothing the team can do to beat it after it smashes up on you. Similarly, most teams of this archetype lose to Klinklang if they don't get a Scald burn with Lanturn. That's prettty shaky, lol. Same goes for Pawniard, as the so-called best team archetype only has Mawile and Sneasel as Dark-resists, which get destroyed by Pawn (and Mawile gives a free +1 boost to boot!) Did I mention Arbok? In fact, I think that most people in the "NU regulars" group (and a lot of other players given the same team) are using this same exact team repeatedly, which really isn't ideal given that everyone (other than Kiyo, lol) seems to be basing their experience on playing this specific team. This team has majority of members losing to Sneasel, and only way to beat it is switching to Mawile over and over again, which can be exploited. In fact, this is an example of a team that lets its other 4 members get super exploited by Sneasel, to the point that Mawile is not only necessary, but becomes heavily overloaded (especially because you need it to check stuff other than Sneasel). It's a team structure that lends itself to lose to Sneasel other than just a singular Sneasel check crammed in because, well, if you didn't have that, game would be over turn 0. The reality is a threat doesn't become covered because you just have a singular, #1 check. If the rest of the team is very weak to it, you're still very weak to it.

That might be true that some pro-ban Sneasel are biased due to their team structure, but I don't see how most anti-ban people aren't just as biased. If you'll notice almost every one of the anti-ban arguments mention how they used fat balance to ladder, aka the playstyle that Gallade fucks up and Sneasel doesn't. So in a similar case, of course Sneasel wouldn't seem broken because your team is specifically tailored to having multiple checks to Sneasel and limited checks to Gallade. And you know what? Maybe Gallade can be called broken after all for the way it skewers those archetypes, which it admittedly does. But it doesn't take away from Sneasel's impact on the metagame either (especially more offensive builds, which as people have pointed out, a lot of anti-banners seem to be ignoring).

Sneasel's frailty doesn't come into effect when it's OHKOing things, of course. The problem is, as you said, Sneasel 2HKOs offensive threats, not OHKO. Sneasel's frailty matters when it's only doing like 75% to Tauros and you die because you didn't OHKO. It's a real problem in games, especially because as yall know, keeping SR up on the opposing side can be pretty difficult, especially if you're using Mawile as your SR user. Not only do you have to force offensive threats like Tauros to switch into SR once, not twice, but 3 times means that you were being rather outplayed. Also this is the reason why non-Band sets trying to "innovate" are terrible, at least in the current metagame. You can't even OHKO Zangoose with Knock Off. That means you do like 80% to just about anything else and you'll most certainly die to whatever hit's coming your way. Congrats, Dark Plate Sneasel!

Offensive teams DO have mons that get straight OHKOed by Sneasel. Psychic- and Ghost-types are extremely common threats on many offensive teams (I'd go as far as to argue they're necessary for a lot of them), all of which Sneasel gets a free kill off of. Hell, certain frailer Pokemon like Electivire or Gallade get OHKOed without even being weak to the move. So you can't act like there's nothing Sneasel can't capitalize on with normal offensive teams; there's usually MULTIPLE things it can capitalize on, which is the point.

Also who cares if it can't get all that creative? If it works, don't try and fix it lol

Yikes, forgot about a small point, so will make this short:

I am simply pointing out that the idea that just because we ban Sneasel, no offensive Pokemon will be able to outspeed majority of the tier, can always spam a hard-hitting STAB, has good coverage, and thus heavily pressure offense, is laughable at best.

You're kinda just putting words in our mouths if you think we're saying that there shouldn't be any Pokemon that are strong against offense and still functional against fatter teams. Of course Tauros and Archeops exist and fulfill "similar" tasks to Sneasel, but Sneasel is being suspected because it's clearly a notch above the rest. Why? Because it's by far the most risk-free out of all of them. When you're using either Tauros or Archeops over Sneasel there's significantly more opportunity cost and prediction involved, and I doubt anyone can disagree with that. Let's take an example: you bring in your Archeops to revenge a Lilligant, but they have a Regirock or something sitting there to soak up Acro. Even if you have EQ to chunk it, you have to choose between either killing Lilli with Acro or risk getting fucked up by Giga Drain if your opponent is feeling super ballsy (not that they typically will unless they have really good reason to, but just an example). Tauros especially has a major drawback in that its STAB can't hit ANY type super effectively, so when it comes in on a semi-bulky offensive mon they almost always have to be weakened, unlike Sneasel who as I said before can at least capitalize on offensive Uxie and Mesprit and shit. Even with Archeops, you also have to wary about Defeatist which also forces you to make predictions between attacking and Roosting. With Sneasel, you just click Knock Off and auto-benefit, since it both has amazing neutral coverage and free crippling on your opponent outside of Audino.

As an aside: idk about everyone else but I've been thinking about a Sneasel suspect long before anyone on the council said it out loud (and that included the pre-Gallade metagame), so at least for me, it has been a problem even without Gallade to beat up on every playstyle it struggles against and vice versa.

 

[Liarliarpantsonfire]

Sorry in advance for not writing an essay on Gallade or Sneasel with this post, but I just thought of something. With Gallade in the tier many people have switched to him instead of Hariyama or Gurdurr or even Poliwrath as their primary Fighting type. Turns out that all 3 of those are really good answers to Sneasel, but like I said they've fallen out of favor on many teams because of Gallade. Because let's admit it, Sneasel was never as problematic as it is now, thanks to the popularity of mons like Hariyama and Gurdurr back then mainly. Also, in the recent past many teams were using Mega Rupt who beats Sneasel 1 vs 1 always.

So yes Sneasel is a big problem right now for a major part because of Gallade, take away Gallade and she becomes less of a problem. Although I still believe Sneasel is a degenerate mon that should be banned regardless for reasons that have been stated ad nauseam already in this thread. For a healthy meta we'd still need to kick out Mushy too though, and preferably Sawk as well. But that's a story for another day.

 

[Sweet Jesus]

Yikes, forgot about a small point, so will make this short:

The main reason that tipped me over the edge of not banning Sneasel is the following: most arguments for its ban can be summed up to: "it's the fastest relevant offensive threat that doesn't have 5 million checks." As long as you're not something like Swellow or Fletch which gets hard walled by entire types (which can be done also by offensive mons, hence why they do not qualify), it's obvious that if you're the fast threat and it's out against most offensive Pokemon, it's gonna get a kill. That doesn't necessarily mean it's broken, but it's apparently what everyone believes makes a broken Pokemon. If Sneasel's gone, it's gonna be the next speed tier mons, Tauros / Archeops that have these qualities. Then the next up.

This is not a slippery slope argument. It looks similar but it's not. It's an inductive argument, for which the inductive step only fails if all proper offensive mons are very slow. There's always a list of Pokemon that have limited amount of switches. In fact, most reasonably successful offensive Pokemon in any tier have this quality, so it's gonna just be easier taking out the short list of Pokemon which get hard walled by whole types yet remain effective for a quaint reason (usually they can only act as a pure "win condition" where they only start putting in work after certain mon is whittled, but is extremely efficient otherwise). There's always going to be the fastest speed tier among these offensive Pokemon that have the tools to punish most switch-ins. And such fastest Pokemon will always have these quality that people's claiming that makes Sneasel broken. It's gonna outspeed a vast majority of the offensive threat and it's going to 2hko most switches except defensive ones, or a very restrictive, short list of offensive threats that "limit teambuilding." And only way to beat them would be to either build slower teams aka. balance / stall / bulky offense that eats a hit and KO back, or carry priority moves or Scarfers for offense. For anyone thinking I'm just exaggerating, I'm just going to point out that Archeops really was this the case before neither Sneasel nor Tauros was popular, and everyone had to carry like one of the 2 aqua jetters (that couldn't switch in properly), 3 of the rock types, revenge, or tank a hit then kill. Kind of similar to how Sneasel requires like 2 of the fighting-type priority Pokemon, 2 of the GOOD fairy-types, or revenge, or tank a hit then kill.

So are all such Pokemon banworthy? Should we make it so that all Pokemon without a proper switch-in is banned unless they're slower than Sawk or something? Would that really make the tier fun, and would that be necessary?

Also, before anyone points out the philosophy of "If mon Y is broke after banning X, we'll ban it too, this point is utterly invalid," I am aware of that protocol. Notice how I'm not claiming that Tauros will be broken after the ban. I'm just pointing out the fact that whatever qualities people have been stating previously in the thread that makes Sneasel broken, will happen with at least something in the tier, and there will be always something that does what it does, which most people are claiming is the reason why Sneasel is broken. If not him, then something else. It is an eventuality unless we go to extreme measures banning half of the offensive metagame, and we'll be left with fastmons lose to bulkymons, bulkymons lose to wallbreakers, wallbreakers lose to fastmons, making the game trivial and easy. Some non-wincon attackers should be faster, some not. Certain types will be punished because of those who are faster and thus easier to fit. And there'll be certain defensive Pokemon many be relied on "limiting teambuilding", whether it be a meta centralized around Sneasel and grounded on Mawile and M-Audino, or whether it be a meta centralized Tauros and grounded on Regirock / Carracosta. I am simply pointing out that the idea that just because we ban Sneasel, no offensive Pokemon will be able to outspeed majority of the tier, can always spam a hard-hitting STAB, has good coverage, and thus heavily pressure offense, is laughable at best.

If you want to see it that way, I guess you could turn your argument around and imagine what the tier would be like if we added plenty of viable original offensive pokemon to the tier. Such a thing will never happen without a new gen but my point is there is a point where walls would be no longer useful in the long run as they would all rely on team match up because every combination of moves would exist. Therefore I don't consider your point invalid but if there's a limit on both sides, then there is a balanced middle point we should be seaking and I believe keeping sneasel is going in the wrong direction.

On the pursuit point (from your other post), I have a hard time with your arguments. Comparing sneasel's pursuit to skuntank's last gen is not a very accurate way to represent it. The thing is, skuntank was a lot slower than sneasel and the fact it needed sucker punch to hit fast mons gave you a 50/50 shot when pursuiting faster (and usualy frailler) mons and was much less appropriate for a banded set. Sneasel on the other hand can safely trap rotom, missy, haunter, jynx, cryogonal and offensive xatu and therefore these mons will necessarily be revenged killed as soon as they kill something no matter how many switch-ins you have for sneasel. That's not even considering all other things sneasel can trap once they are weakened that skuntank couldn't as practically everything viable with under 84 speed is at least bulky enough to take a pursuit. The fact sneasel's pursuit comes from a much higher speed with a greater power (considering it's banded while skuntank usualy ran black sludge) in a meta where 3 of the 4 best ghost types (according to VR) are super frail and slower than sneasel makes a huge difference on the impact of pursuit. Besides, when skuntank's pursuit wasn't useful, there was a good chance you wished you had crunch instead. With sneasel, even if you don't use pursuit in a game, you probably still spammed knock off. I played BW, consider myself a rather good player and cannot "confirm" your point on pursuit, sorry.

This pursuit point is also a very big difference sneasel has over tauros and archeops making them less metagame defining in a meta without sneasel than sneasel is right now. There's a lot of points generally speaking that also make tauros and archeops less threatening than sneasel such as not removing eviolites, rocky helmets, berries and leftovers on impact, the fact 2 of our best walls are psychic (uxie/mush), not being immune to fake out flinch, archeops's defeatist, tauros's slightly generic coverage, bad accuracy and 4 mss.

I have to disagree when you say the reasons why sneasel is currently suspected will always be valid for some mon in the tier as the only thing it really has in common with archeops and tauros is it's fast and it hits hard. Sure sneasel would never be suspected if it was weak and slow, but it's stats are far from being the only thing that define it as a nuisance to this metagame.

 

[bird crew]

Sorry in advance for not writing an essay on Gallade or Sneasel with this post, but I just thought of something. With Gallade in the tier many people have switched to him instead of Hariyama or Gurdurr or even Poliwrath as their primary Fighting type. Turns out that all 3 of those are really good answers to Sneasel, but like I said they've fallen out of favor on many teams because of Gallade. Because let's admit it, Sneasel was never as problematic as it is now, thanks to the popularity of mons like Hariyama and Gurdurr back then mainly. Also, in the recent past many teams were using Mega Rupt who beats Sneasel 1 vs 1 always.

So yes Sneasel is a big problem right now for a major part because of Gallade, take away Gallade and she becomes less of a problem. Although I still believe Sneasel is a degenerate mon that should be banned regardless for reasons that have been stated ad nauseam already in this thread. For a healthy meta we'd still need to kick out Mushy too though, and preferably Sawk as well. But that's a story for another day.

Hariyama is a fantastic sneasel switch in. It resists both its stabs, isn't all too crippled by losing its item, and given the right coverage can dent anything coming in just as hard or harder than sneasel. I'll post calcs later, but I'm fairly sure sneasel 4HKO's at best, and also doesn't want to take either a CC or bullet punch from yama.

Gurdurr is effective, although losing its eviolite in the early game means it can have a harder time setting up and healing off the damage with drain punch.

I am going to experiment with using a physically bulky yama with assault vest and one with band (maybe even bulk up) and see if either set proves useful in this meta.

 

[Sweet Jesus]

Hariyama is a fantastic sneasel switch in. It resists both its stabs, isn't all too crippled by losing its item, and given the right coverage can dent anything coming in just as hard or harder than sneasel. I'll post calcs later, but I'm fairly sure sneasel 4HKO's at best, and also doesn't want to take either a CC or bullet punch from yama.

Gurdurr is effective, although losing its eviolite in the early game means it can have a harder time setting up and healing off the damage with drain punch.

I am going to experiment with using a physically bulky yama with assault vest and one with band (maybe even bulk up) and see if either set proves useful in this meta.

Still, Yama is grrrreat with guts as he becomes by far the #1 switch-in on wow, sludge bomb and the dreaded scald. Now that typh and M-camerupt are gone, the only reason I even run thick fat is stupid sneasel (Just to show once more how much it defines the meta).

Gurdurr is a good switch-in as in "it's gonna have plenty of hp left", but seriously, look at it's stats, without an evio and with a little damage, it looks kind of like a physical sunflora... If it couldn't hold an item, the thing would probably be C/C- in viability rankings. To me a counter shouldn't be something that becomes shitty when it switches in even if being shitty doesn't mean being low on hp. Not only do we not have megas to take knock off's but NU is full of mons using evio that would barely be viable without them.

 

[Kiyo]

marilli why are you telling people what beats that team archetype??? I was having fun gettin' ez wins with Klinklang,,,

 

[doomsday doink]

marilli why are you telling people what beats that team archetype??? I was having fun gettin' ez wins with Klinklang,,,

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/nususpecttest-244810158
MonoFire also gets ez wins vs Kiyo's Klinklang

 

[Kiyo]

http://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/nususpecttest-244810158
MonoFire also gets ez wins vs Kiyo's Klinklang

are you kidding me bro,,, i thought we were frens

 

[Kiyo]

So this video pretty accurately displays my opinion on Sneasel in this metagame and why its extremely unhealthy. For those of you too lazy to watch (or who hate my voice, etc.) I'll drop some comments below.

Sneasel may have a list of dedicated counters and defensive checks that fit well on to common team archetypes, but that doesnt even prevent the amount of work it puts in. In 3 of the 4 games I play in this video my opponents have a hard counter to Sneasel (M-Audino, Mawile, Granbull) yet Sneasel still manages to severely weaken or kill half of their team members.

Sneasel poses an immediate offensive presence thanks to its high base Speed (which also makes it difficult to revenge kill) and Attack stats, despite the fact that it has dedicated counters the opponent still has to switch them in, which leaves their Pokemon weak to Pursuit, at the very worse a misprediction with Sneasel results in the opponent losing their item and in a tier where many mon's are deemed viable thanks to Eviolite this can cause a team member to lose value over the course of a match.

I'll be making a video with Gallade soon to try and showcase how I feel about its place in the metagame, give me some feedback to help make the Gallade video better if you so choose.

 

[tehy]

i got rebuked for my lack of content / kindness, so here I am to give a fuller opinion (off work until Sunday, so i've got the time now as well)

Firstly, I laddered with a team using a Sneasel, and I haven't used Gallade at all. And I have to say that Sneasel didn't feel all that amazing. Okay, it swept at times, but so did Kangaskhan, my other main offensive man. Certainly it swept more often, but Kanga has the amazing double priority on lock to make up for that. Sure, Sneasel -might- (we'll return to this later) make offense feel like it's in a prison shower that stocks extra-slippery soap, but against balance, its performance isn't that great.

This is why I think Gallade is ridiculous; on paper it takes stall to that same naughty shower, and from my experiences it makes balance feel quite violated as well. It's also got versatility in spades - even just the ability to run Scarf means I have to either relinquish my Sneasel momentum or risk losing a mon. (I suppose sneasel could technically do the same, but it never has and I doubt it ever will). Needless to say, there's a lot of posts in this thread complaining that Gallade should have been RU to begin with; as the counter-posts say this isn't a relevant factor, but from my laddering experience it's true as hell.

Let's get back to Sneasel; is it too strong for offense? Well, offense has potential checks, beginning with any water-type + fighting-type as a general core to theoretically take any attack, as well as offensive Mawile and maybe Custap Regirock, as well as Carracosta or even Gurdurr. These Pokemon do hate losing their items, fine, but it's still preferable to dying. Generally offense, especially the kind that can't afford to carry a defensive pivot, relies upon sacrificing mons from time to time, as well as keeping up offensive pressure and making liberal use of Pokemon that can't switch in but aren't forced out either. What i'm saying is, why is Sneasel so much different from other offense-killers? Hell, it's even choice-locked, which as some have said allows Barbaracle to Shell Smash on it-a possibility which scares the hell out of me personally. Ultimately, this does boil down to how good it actually IS versus offense; i was always willing to acknowledge the possibility of it being too good, but i'd like to see it actually perform against it. People not using offense may mean it's bad for other reasons, or that balance is easier to pull off, or any number of things.

other things:

it's true that Sneasel auto-benefits if it can unleash that Knock Off, but it's so frail it has trouble always getting into that position, isn't that strong overall, can't switch moves, sort of unlike Archeops, whose Acrobatics is almost as strong as CB Knock Off (certainly stronger over 2 moves).

I don't like Mega Audino as the holy-grail sneasel stop. Something I think people have been missing out on:

252 Atk Choice Band Sneasel Icicle Crash vs. 252 HP / 252+ Def Audino: 133-157 (32.4 - 38.2%)

so with rocks up, you switch in and basically have a 30% chance to get forced out; since we both know you're going for the Wish, it's a safe roll to go for, since I can just switch on the Protect next turn (or bop you if you're willing to make the ballsy play). Mega Audino + a sturdy Ice resist is nice though. (This all assumes that you won't Mega, which most people won't early-game and which makes you easy to wear down in any case).

kiyo's vid:

replay 1: i've always really liked clamperl
replay 2: in this, we see the man is metaphysically weak to Magmortar and ends up sacrificing his Sneasel stop because of it. As a result, Kiyo won with a 59% sneasel. Is this broken, honestly ? had Metaphysical just cc'd first turn, he would've been much better offf overall.
replay 3: this woman has a corsola. and 3 dark weaks. and he constantly switched despite probably being able to punish you otherwise. ...x-scissor LO sneasel, what is this man supposed to show exactly ? i could've proven that klinklang was broken against this guy too
replay 4: why did he switch out, honestly... i've played this man on ladder and he makes head-scratching plays (the kind where you overpredict and it seems like brilliance, then you stop and 6-0 him). you know, come to think this man is just trolling... ad hominem sez this man is irrelevant. (Also, again i could've proven Klinklang is broken from this replay)

The Goomy:

Honestly, learn to read and learn respect. My post clearly contains the knowledge that what you're saying may be true, and yours contains nothing but disrespect. I suppose I could've stated this all more clearly, but I wasn't looking to write an essay at the time (though i sure am now).

In short... I'm leaning towards not banning Sneasel. However, i'm open to dialogue and I plan to educate myself further on the metagame (no promises but a livetour might be o.k.).

And also, Rain should seriously be looked at, as should SmashPass. Those strategies are consistently good and consistently matchup-based to a really stupid degree.

 

[Vapo]

So I wanted to wait until getting reqs before posting my thoughts on Sneasel and Gallade. I'm not the most experienced NU player in the world, but I think I have a decent understanding of each pokemon's influence on the metagame after 61 matches.

Sneasel was something I found to be rather underwhelming at first. It wasn't all that strong without a Choice Band and struggled a lot versus Balance and bulky teams in general. However, its power versus Offense is ultimately what could get it banned. It's at a fantastic speed tier, outspeeding practically the entire relevant metagame. Unless you're running physically defensive Mega Audino, something on your team is getting punished by Knock Off if you give Sneasel a free switch in. While I wouldn't say Sneasel restricts teambuilding that much (because it does have plenty of checks and counters) it does put a ton of pressure on those who wish to run Offense, since most of Sneasel's counters are passive. From what I noticed while getting reqs many players opt to run Xatu and not a reliable hazard clearer, so the combination of hazards damage + Knock Off and the loss of leftovers recovery meant Sneasel did not really struggle wearing down its counters, if they were present, over the course of the game. While Sneasel is not broken imo, it is without a doubt an unhealthy presence in the metagame, so I'm leaning towards Ban.

Gallade was something I was surprised wasn't quick banned when I first heard it dropped to NU. It's one of the most versatile pokemon in the tier that can run sets that threaten all team archtypes. Sub Bulk Up is extremely threatening towards stall, SD threatens all archtypes but mainly balance, and Gallade can even opt to run Scarf and trash offense. It's a pokemon that does not require set up to really pressure your opponent but gets two fantastic forms of it. It has a great dual STAB, and in combination with Knock Off, hits most of the tier for super effective damage, all of this backed up by an insane base 125 attack. I really don't see a way this thing stays in the tier. It just puts so much pressure on teams, regardless of what you're running. Definitely going with Ban on this one, as it was extremely apparent while laddering that this thing cannot be effectively countered.

 

[Arcticblast]

Disclaimer: I don't play singles often, and as Doubles leader my banning philosophy essentially boils down to "git gud" so I may not be qualified to talk about a singles suspect

I've played about four hours of NU and I already think Sneasel is broken.

I've been running a team of CM ResTalk Mega Audino, Choice Band Sneasel, Lanturn, Torterra, Xatu, and Tauros, as well as using Hollywood's Cold team a bit, and I haven't felt particularly pressured by either suspect when using the former. However, having used Sneasel on both teams, I honestly think this thing is disgusting. A powerful Knock Off, while certainly wallable, puts a ton of pressure on the opponent whenever Sneasel comes in on something it can KO, and with its Speed and power it can often 2HKO a switchin. It tears up what seems to be a pretty Psychic-heavy metagame and with a slower U-turn or Volt Switch partner (Xatu and Lanturn!) can get in relatively unscathed repeatedly throughout a match. It takes hits like (makeup) takes dicks (zero) but it can still hit the field even when the opponent gets up Stealth Rock.

Gallade on the other hand doesn't feel as good. It's strong, but it's a lot slower, and setting up is difficult in a metagame with Lanturn burns and bulky Psychics running around, as well as faster offensive things like Sneasel and Tauros that do a ton of damage before it can move. Of course I haven't played against decent Gallade much (WHY DO THEY USE ASSAULT VEST) so I'm not as qualified to speak there

 

[Quite Quiet]

I have not been motivated this test, not only because the ladder and this meta is awful, but any discussion around either suspect have been bandwagoning around the latest good post that was made, regardless of direction. Reading how Sneasel is fast/frail/choice locked/beat offense or how Gallade beats bulky teams/is easily revenged/have lots of sets/less effective vs offense over and over again doesn't really motivate me to post anything either. Regardless, I found something that I wanted to mention, if only to have said something about it. Do note that anything I say is mostly personal opinion about suspect tests in general, and not facts, so don't treat it as such.

A few posts have gone to either suspect with the motivation "X will be fine if Y is banned", and while the general idea is fine, it's not how (if you ask me) suspects should be looked at. If Sneasel is a problem because Gallade exists, or vice versa, because a meta without Gallade could support Sneasel, then your decision is based on a speculated future metagame. This is not a good thing. The results of a suspect test should be based on how they preform in the current metagame, not how they might be in the future. We cannot possibly predict the future, so basing your decision is flawed logic.

Even though your opinion might be that Gallade is forcing a metagame where Sneasel is an overwhelming force, the logic shouldn't be to ban Gallade and keep Sneasel. That at least implies a decision based on some possible future metagame. Which, while the reasoning can be reasonable, is very flawed from a balancing standpoint.

So, while I expect more "Sneasel is fast and frail posts", at least judge them on how they currently preform and not on how they might...

(I promise I might actually post something on the suspects sometime)

 

[thesecondbest]

Ban Gallade retest typh y/y
on a more srs note i watched a few more games on ladder (can't play, away from home rn) but sneasel is just something teams are unprepared for or overprepared for. Bringing 5 ice weaks and a mawile is not enough, but using good things like scarf scyther, magmortar, gallade, audino, garbodor, kabutops, kanga, laturn, carracosta, gurdurr, and hariyama(like i said earlier this is a personal favorite but still use it it is overpowered) will prepare you for it. All of these things are in A or S except yama and are quite good. So use them instead of lilligant and archeops! Adapt to sneasel by making a new team, not just slapping on a mawile! I may not be the best informed on this meta but I don't think anyone is thinking straight right now. Both bandwagons have plenty of people on them already.
I hope sneasel gets no banned and then its own suspect, since gallade also definitely has an impact on it. Also maybe retest typh first like I said above.

 

[QueenOfLuvdiscs]

Ban Gallade retest typh y/y
on a more srs note i watched a few more games on ladder (can't play, away from home rn) but sneasel is just something teams are unprepared for or overprepared for. Bringing 5 ice weaks and a mawile is not enough, but using good things like scarf scyther, magmortar, gallade, audino, garbodor, kabutops, kanga, laturn, carracosta, gurdurr, and hariyama(like i said earlier this is a personal favorite but still use it it is overpowered) will prepare you for it. All of these things are in A or S except yama and are quite good. So use them instead of lilligant and archeops! Adapt to sneasel by making a new team, not just slapping on a mawile! I may not be the best informed on this meta but I don't think anyone is thinking straight right now. Both bandwagons have plenty of people on them already.
I hope sneasel gets no banned and then its own suspect, since gallade also definitely has an impact on it. Also maybe retest typh first like I said above.

Lets retest broken shit so we can make yama relevant again, just for you n_n
Also, I really don't think anyone would build a team that weak to ice and solely rely on mawile to check the plethora of ice types in the tier. Lilligant and Archeops are also really good as they can take advantage of the more slower, bulky teams so telling people not to use them is, quite frankly silly, just because they are weak to ice lol

 

[Rapture]

All your offensive checks that you named for sneasel are pretty bad with a scarf equipped so they'll just lose to knock off otherwise. As for defensive checks, they either aren't (idk where you got the idea where lanturn is a sneasel switch in lol) or they might win 1v1 but any half decent team builder would prepare for them just as easily since they lose to any of the other handful of offensive threats in the tier or can get worn down by hazards to the point where they no longer adequately check sneasel. imo the benefits of sneasel getting banned outweigh the consequences considerably, and it's a good step towards fixing the current meta which is pretty bad atm.

 

[Aladyyn]

By introducing Typhlosion to the metagame we have right now you're probably making it even worse. As was said before in this thread there are way too many threats to account for already. I agree it probably wouldn't be broken since a lot of faster mons are commonplace on offense but I really see 0 reason to retest it in NU at this time.

 

[lax]

ok, I got reqs so here are my thoughts on Gallade and Sneasel. I didn't use either of them in the suspect for some reason. o.0

Gallade: Gallade is a pretty crazy mon and you never know which set you are up against, it could be running choice band, av, or the bulk up set, all of which are amazing and extremely versatile. Gallade has such an amazing movepool that there are actually no counters depending on the set and the best way to be rid of it would probably be to revenge kill it after sacking something. It is also extremely bulky and has amazing SpDef and when it uses bulk up + drain punch it doesn't go down easily, something like Scyther would have to come in and attempt to finish it off. I say ban.

Sneasel: Sneasel is a Pokemon that is unhealthy to the metagame for a variety of ways. 1. Its amazing dual STAB coverage in combination with its amazing speed tier and access to coverage moves such as low kick to hit its counters as well as access to priority, allowing it to hit basically everything in the tier as well as function as an amazing revenge killer. This makes it a Pokemon that's almost impossible to prepare for and makes many playstyles like balance much more difficult as sneasel coupled with other Pokemon like scyther and gallade for offensive cores tear virtually any defensive team to shreds with little difficulty. Going with ban.

 

[Senpai D.M]

Thoughts on Both suspects;

: A very fun mon to use but not so much to face lol. Once it comes in it gets to click knock off at no cost really. CB Icicle crash is nothing to overlook either, in fact Sneasel could just flinch everything late game alone. Pursuit punishes switches and also has priority in ice shard. Its down sides are a lot though as well already mentioned. It feels underwhelming tbh theres also quit a lot of counters pawn/barb etc. Its made of glass so won't be around long it also doesn't like switching into hazards. I almost forgot to mention the sd set a better set imo it gets a extra bulk and can get chances to set up pretty often. This set gives so much trouble to all playstyles and in teambuilding. I feel like its not "broken" but very unhealthy to the meta. lets not have a ladder full of 'checks' pls ;_; BAN

: Honestly feel like this is too good for the tier Subs up and wins !But it doesnt stop there sadly.. It has great stats all around and a great movepool. You never really know what set you will be facing a band? scarfer? sub? Gallade is good at breaking everything down for the team or winning alone. It has no problem subbing up on most of the tier. Once you finally manage to revenge kill it the damage will already be done lol. BAN